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Child Bullies Are Three Times More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems

A study presented at the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that children who bully others are at least three times as likely to have an underlying mental health disorder.

The Gist

Fifteen-year-old
Felicia Garcia jumped to her death in front of an oncoming train at
Staten Island’s Huguenot Station this week. The last entry on her
Twitter account revealed that she “gave up,” tired of months of endless
bullying by some of her high school classmates. Friends at the school
who witnessed Garcia’s experiences described them as “torture.”

Bullying
is a form of youth violence defined as repetitive and intentional
aggression by one person or a group of people who feel empowered over
their victim. Bullying behaviors are often significantly different
depending on the gender of the bully: male students often engage in
direct verbal taunting and physical violence, while female students use
strategies to embarrass, humiliate, and/or severely ostracize their
victims.

In 2011, a national survey of high school students
found that 20 percent were the victims of bullying in the past year,
statistics that are slightly lower than U.S. Department of Education
findings for 2006-2007. In that survey, 8 million students, or 32 percent, said they'd experienced bullying.

Unfortunately, Garcia’s suicide is not unusual. It adds to the evidence that bullying (and cyber-bullying)
in schools is out of control. Attention is most often focused on the
victims of bullying, but a new study presented this week at the national
conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics
suggests that physicians, administrators, teachers, and parents take a
more careful look at the mental status of the bullies themselves.

Researchers reviewed information provided by parents and guardians on mental health and bullying in the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, which included data from 64,000 children. In that survey, more than 15 percent of children were identified as bullies—and were at least three times as likely to have an existing mental health disorder as their peers.

The Expert Take

According
to study author Frances G. Turcotte-Benedict, M.D., a Brown University
master’s of public health student and a fellow at Hasbro Children’s
Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, “Bullies are often described as
aggressive, dominating, and impulsive. [They] have been found to be at
an increased risk for substance abuse, academic problems, and are more
likely to engage in violent behaviors as teens and adults.”

In the Children’s Health Survey population, 16.6 percent of
children had been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder.
Not surprisingly, many students suffered from depression (3.31 percent),
anxiety (2.89 percent), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,
or ADHD (2.82 percent).

“Depression is strongly associated with
more difficulty in controlling impulses,” says Turcotte-Benedict,
“[which] can often translate as bullying or lead to bullying
behaviors.”

However, the largest group of students with mental health disorders—6 percent—had a lesser-known condition called Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder, one associated with a six-fold increase in the likelihood of becoming a bully.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a condition described by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
as “a persistent pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant
behavior, or vindictiveness lasting at least six months.” Those
students are described as spiteful, disrespectful, and even deliberately
annoying, with a repeated pattern of blaming others for their behavior.

The Takeaway

Ultimately,
more emphasis needs to be placed on teachers and administrators to not
only provide support to victims of bullying, but to the bullies
themselves.

“These findings highlight the importance of providing
psychological support not only to victims of bullying, but to bullies
as well,” says Turcotte-Benedict. “In order to create successful
anti-bullying prevention and intervention programs, there is a need for
more research to understand the relationship more thoroughly, and
especially, the risk profile of childhood bullies.”

Other Research

A 2010 study published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics reported
that “Oppositional defiant behavior is a co-morbid in more than half of
all ADHD cases” and called the need to examine that potential
relationship “essential.”

Other studies have examined the links between ODD, bullying, and adult anti-social behaviors.

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